By Lindsey Cooke
Toronto, Ontario — May 31, 2019 — In this week’s autonomous vehicle report: experts predict more traffic jams for the future, Volkswagen is on a mission to solve motion sickness, and Waymo’s autonomous trucks are back on the road!
Increase in Traffic Jams
Experts are saying that autonomous vehicles could cause a lot more congestion on the road. Finding parking is a hassle in the city, but with autonomous vehicles, people will soon have the ability to ask their car to circle around the block or head home and come back for them. Experts are saying that this could result in a lot more congestion. Not to mention the fact that self-driving cars are also programmed to play by the rules of the road.
“[AVs] will never break any traffic rules. If there is a speed of 50 km/h, [AVs] will go 50 km/h. [AVs] will wait for an efficient gap to merge into traffic where a human would bend the rules to make progress, autonomous vehicles will be more cautious,” researcher associate at the University of Waterloo Michal Antkiewicz told Global News.
“We could see as much as a 30 percent increase in total vehicle traffic,” executive director of Victoria Transport Policy Todd Litman told Global News. For a Torontian it takes an average 35 minutes to get anywhere. With this increase, it could add another 15 minutes to someone’s commute. Drivers in the U.S. are already experiencing an increase in traffic jams.
A possible solution that experts have come to is the put a price on the roads drivers are using.
VW solution to sickness
Reading a magazine or even looking at your phone in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle can cause feelings of nausea. While one of the benefits of autonomous vehicles will be to allow passengers to get some work done or focus on other things besides the road, Volkswagen is concerned that more people might experience car sickness.
The OEM is looking into two specific aspects: What makes a person sick in a car and how to resolve that issue for the future. To find an answer, Volkswagen is putting people in vehicles and making them feel sick. From this experiment, the OEM came up with a couple of possible solutions, such as movable seats and LED light strips showing passengers when a car is braking or accelerating.
Waymo Trucks Return
Autonomous vehicle startup Waymo announced on Twitter that its big-rig trucks will be on the roads again in Arizona. “Our fully self-driving trucks are returning to Arizona to continue testing on Phoenix-area freeways,” the company announced. “Let us know what you think if you see them on the road!” These vehicles have also been tested in Georgia and California.
